Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Public Choice Theory describes the extension of analysis to the political alternatives to markets. Many commentators talk about “market failure,” but far fewer ever mention government failure. Public choice theory sheds light on how government employees face incentives as much as employees in the private markets, and how these incentives can create bad policies, costly regulations, and other negative consequences.

Identify a problem to be “solved” by government. But there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.